Nazis Planned To Deport
Jews To Russia

Russian historian Pavel
Polian
found a February
1940 letter from Yevgeny Chekmenyov
of Moscow’s Department of Resettlement
to Viatcheslav
Molotov, then foreign minister
and head of the Soviet government, mentioning
letters from Berlin and Vienna in which
German officials approached Moscow
with the idea of shipping all
Jews in the German Reich to Birobidjan — a
Siberian area that Stalin had
designated as a Jewish autonomous region — and
western Ukraine.
Chekmenyov was requesting Molotov’s
advice on how to respond to the German request,
but mentions that he thinks the USSR already
has enough Jews of its own. Polian could
not find two enclosures
mentioned in the letter, but believes they
were
written by Adolf
Eichmann and Alois
Brunner,
who were responsible for Jewish immigration
in Berlin and Vienna, respectively.